BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:08 AM

Graph of the clock since 1947.

Too damned close no matter how ya look at it.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 01:03 AM

The doomsday clock has been recently been pushed ahead another 2 minutes, it's last push ahead was 2 minutes I believe 9 yrs ago. This time the push was due mainly because of the mid-east hostilities & the US's willingness to develop it's nuclear bunker busters.

The clock now reads 5 minutes before midnight! I think that's the closest ever BUT I'm not sure, check it & correct me.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: GUEST,Odss expert
Date: 01 Feb 07 - 02:26 AM

90 - 30 either way with a 6 point spread.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 09:11 PM

I think so, McGrath. I hope they ask a *lot* of sharp questions.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:44 PM

I hope "jaundiced" here mean questioning and sceptical?

Senor, senor, do you know where we're headin'?
Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?
Seems like I been down this way before.
Is there any truth in that, senor?

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 10:23 PM

Tonight's news reported that Congress is looking at the "evidence" with jaundiced eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 07:35 PM

The schedule has already been announced.

1. "Iran is capable of producing fission weapons in about 5 years." (Any of several recent "analyses.")
2. Israel already has them.
3. A "new intelligence report" will confirm that Iran has made unexpected progress, or has made a purchase from the N Koreans. (Not more than 5 years from now)
4. A fission weapon attack by Iran will be reported.
5. Israel (and/or the US) will retaliate.
6. There will be radiation all over Iran, but none at the reported original attack ground zero.
7. Faulty intelligence will be claimed. One CIA agent will be "outed."
8. Politics as usual will prevail.<sup>1

1</sup>If timing is appropriate, "The Great Decider" may even be able to declare an "extreme national emergency" to suspend the 2008 US elections and establish himself permanently as ...

John

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 07:13 PM

Suicide bombing can be catching, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: bubblyrat
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 06:07 PM

After centuries of persecution & wandering, the Jews in Israel are probably the people most likely to use them. As long as there was a possibility that Israel could repel an invasion by conventional means,then that is what she would do, but,in the event of the inevitability of overwhelming defeat,I feel certain that they wouldn"t hesitate to exercise the final option. The consequences for the world in general don"t bear thinking about,to be honest. I think Israel ,knowing that we KNOW this,will always rely on us to protect her. But if we ,for whatever reason, fail in this obligation,------??

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 03:05 PM

Way up yonder BWL said that in 1963 "everybody" knew that 1967 would not come to pass. I remember 1963 very well so I went looking for its history. As years go, especially up to Autumn, it was a fairly mellow time. Among the things that happened internationally are:

1 French veto Common Market, 2 Ngo Dinh Diem, 3 Kenya Independent, 4 OAU Founded, 5 Nuclear Test (A test ban treaty, actually), 6 Feminine Mystique, 7 U of Alabama Integrated, 8 Medgar Evers Slain, 9 Martin Luther King, 10 Kennedy visits Berlin, 11 Kennedy Assassinated, 12 Vaccine for Measles..."

I'd be interested in hearing Beed develop his thought further.


As for whether I think nuclear weapons will be used in the MidEast any time soon, as long as the Bush is in the White House there is no way to predict. It appears that not only is his own mind warped closed but he has advisors and minions that encourage the bloodiest - and stupidest - of his thoughts.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: GUEST,Don Last
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 02:02 PM

As I said here 3 years ago "the beauty part of using nuclear weapons in Iraq and Iran is that we can blame them"

Forensicly all we need do is use a uranium of the type and mine that Iran would use and we would have "proof" that they did it.

Six years ago I illustrated General Franks showing the US use of nuclear weapons in that region by using a lovely graphic for an infamous cable news network .

I'm sure we will have lovely graphics to show how limited the holocaust really is with pundits galore including retired generals from every defense contractor, think tank and weapons dealer this great country has to offer.

They will all be carefull to include the talking point that the oil is free from radioactivity.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 01:50 PM

I'd say the most likely countries to use them already have them.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 12:43 AM

But will the first user have to? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: DougR
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 11:42 PM

They won't use them until they have them to use. Then they will use them.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: GUEST,George
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:46 PM

If ya gonna use my name in vain, couldja identify yourself???
George

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 07:43 PM

Yeah, Rap, I know....

Lotta Iraqi's have been literially burned to death from these DU rounds as these super hot particals just burn and eat human flesh. And I can imagine that many of these deaths are not quick but inhumanly slow and painful...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: GUEST,donuel
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 07:20 PM

The American public needs another year of re education first.

2 years ago the PNAC media outlets began an Orwellian re definition of things like nuclear weapons and the quaint atomic bomb. They are to be called called low yeild bunker busters. Drop the low yeild part and we are ready.

3 years ago we were told by the Bush administration that the use of nuclear weapons in the middle east is within our purogative.

Now that all dissent within the CIA and DOD is being purged there is not a chance in hell that nuclear war will be averted.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:32 PM

Gonna go into the hills. Way, way back into the hills. Gonna find me a cave, crawl into it, and pull it in after me.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:25 PM

Oh, joy.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 03:18 PM

Yeah, I saw that.

Damn. Just what the world needs, and it isn't love, sweet love.

Damn.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 12:05 PM

I wasn't sure where to put this, but because of the name of the thread, and the subject at hand, why not?

And all I can say to it, is "Oh goody! Just what's needed!"


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041117/D86DLRLG0.html


..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 10:28 AM

OK, Wolfgang. You're wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Nov 04 - 09:15 AM

Brucie,
never tell someone else they are right for their sake. Who needs that to be happy is a very sad person. I like to admit my errors for my own sake, for I learn more from my errors than from me being right. The person I have laughed about most often in my life is me, by far, and mostly about my errors or my stupidity.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 05:42 PM

And, Bobert, I'm not addressing those issues. I don't have enough information to discuss them intelligently, but I'll say that I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Here's something else: we use an anti-tank round that first blows a hole the thickness of a pencil and then sprays the inside of a tank with a squirt of molten metal.

THAT has never seemed pleasant to me, either.....

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 05:34 PM

I know that they don't explode, Rap... It's just after these rounds hit somethin' the rounds just kinds come apart causing thousands of small little burny things... That's after the round has pieced whatever it hit. As these burny particles cool they are reduced to a dust which in turn blows around. Before it is blown away, howveer, if someone come in contact with it they, according to whom you believe, can make someone real sick...

It is thought that the high numbers of birth deformities of Iraqi kids since Gulf I that the residue from the DU'd may be conributing cause. Also, there was a dcotor at a VA center who was seeing symptoms in Gulf War vets and hypothesiszed it was the DU'd. He was fired after bringing his suspicions up with his superiors.

I have all that info in another thread which I satrted a couple years ago. Names, dates, quotes, etc...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 05:26 PM

Yeah, Carol, the explosion in Bali that killed the Australian tourists (and others) is the one I'm referring to. I've read some pretty odd stuff about it here and there, but I haven't come to any final conclusions about it. It may have been a quite small mini-nuclear weapon (obviously much smaller than the A-bombs used in 1945). Such things have become more and more refined in the last few decades.

Wolfgang - Yeah, "thou shalt not kill" was actually "thou shalt not murder", as you say. The Isrealites were clearly under the impression that killing anyone besides an Israelite was not murder! One can see this easily from their genocidal activities against various other tribes of people upon their arrival in "the promised land".

This strikes me as one of the most self-serving pieces of religious hypocrisy and moral claptrap I've ever heard of in my life. They massacred whole cities full of other people, right down to the women and children...just to take their land.

That's not just murder, it's mass murder.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 04:50 PM

Bobert, it is depleted. The slugs are made from used-up U-235 and U-238 rods from nuclear reactors.

They cannot explode as even the tiniest atomic blast you could imagine. The amount of fissionable material is too small (well, theoretically you could make a 1/10th of a gram of U-235 go bang, but the implosion force needed far exceeds anything we can or probably ever will be able to do).

Those slugs are pure, shaped, very, very dense metal traveling a a very high speed. When they hit they give up all of their kinetic energy all at once, mostly as heat, and burn their way through armor, spattering hot metal drops all over whoever's inside, and generally playing havoc. And more than one round is shot off....

Now, this is NOT saying that the slugs don't give off radiation or that such radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma particles, for instance) isn't also spattered all over.

All I'm saying is that the bullets made of depleted uranium don't cause tiny nuclear explosions. They can do enough damage without that.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:45 PM

"Depleted" uranium, gol dangit... Yeah, they'd like you to think it was deleted...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:43 PM

Well, gol danged!

Let's get real here, folks. The US used nuclear weapons in the last Gulf war and is using 'um in this one... Yeah, deleted uranium is a nuclear weapon. Of yeah, the DoD would have you think its so safe that it ougtta be sold in health food stores but that is not the case... The DoD has done a fine job of keeping te real story from surfacing but it will... Sho nuff will...

Secondly, word on the streets is that Isreal has asked the US for 40 nuclear bunker busters so they can take out Iran's nuclear program...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 02:10 PM

I love ya Wolfgang. Ya make me crazy, but I love ya. Absolutely NO point telling you you're right because you already KNOW that.

LOLOLOL


That is my first really good laugh for the day. A very good friend of mine named George Gruenefeld was as hard-headed as you are. He and I were best friends, but we had some doozy arguments that would last for weeks or months. Most stubborn person I ever met--and then you came along.

LOLOL

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 01:07 PM

From a news release from Washington University in St. Louis, via Eurekaalert:

To operate a nuclear power plant like Three Mile Island, hundreds of highly trained employees must work in concert to generate power from safe fission, all the while containing dangerous nuclear wastes.

On the other hand, it's been known for 30 years that Mother Nature once did nuclear chain reactions by her lonesome. Now, Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have analyzed the isotopic structure of noble gases produced in fission in a sample from the only known natural nuclear chain reaction site in the world in Gabon, West Africa, and have found how she does the trick. Picture Old Faithful.

Analyzing a tiny fragment of rock, less than one-eight of an inch, taken from the Gabon site, Alexander Meshik, Ph.D., Washington University senior research scientist in physics, has calculated that the precise isotopic structure of xenon in the sample reveals an operation that worked like a geyser. The reactor, active two billion years ago, worked on a 30-minute reaction cycle, accompanied by a two-and-a-half hour dormant period, or cool down.

In the Oct. 29, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters, Meshik and his Washington University collaborators write: "This similarity (to a geyser) suggests that a half an hour after the onset of the chain reaction, unbounded water was converted to steam, decreasing the thermal neutron flux and making the reactor sub-critical. It took at least two-and-a-half hours for the reactor to cool down until fission Xe (xenon) began to retain. Then the water returned to the reactor zone, providing neutron moderation and once again establishing a self-sustaining chain."

Prior to this calculation, it was known that the natural nuclear reactor operated two billion years ago for 150 million years at an average power of 100 kilowatts. The Washington University team solved the mystery of how the reactor worked and why it didn't blow up.

Meshik and his collaborators, Charles Hohenberg, Ph.D., Washington University professor of physics, and Olga Pravdivtseva, Ph.D., senior research scientist in physics, used a selective laser combined with sensitive, ion-counting mass spectrometry to concentrate on the sample's moderator, a uranium-free mineral assembly of lanthanum, cerium, strontium and calcium called alumophosphate. The xenon found and analyzed provides the story of this ancient natural nuclear reactor. Meshik and his colleagues inferred from the xenon analysis the mode of operation and also the method of safely storing nuclear wastes, particularly fission xenon and krypton.

"This is very impressive, to think this natural system not only went critical, it also safely stored the waste," said Meshik. "Nature is much smarter than we are. Nature is the first genius. We have all kinds of problems with modern-day nuclear reactors. This reactor is so independent, with no electronics, no models. Just using the fact that water boiled at the reactor site might give contemporary nuclear reactor researchers ideas on how to operate more safely and efficiently."

In 1952, the late Paul Kuroda predicted that if the right conditions existed, a natural nuclear reactor system could go critical. Twenty years later, noticing that uranium ore from the Oklo mine was depleted in 235 Uranium , it was discovered that the site had once been a natural nuclear reaction system.

"The big question we addressed was: When it reached criticality, why didn't it blow up?" Meshik said. "We found the answer in the xenon."

Critical means that a fissionable material has enough mass to sustain a reaction. There were two major theories on how the reactor operated. One held that the system burned up highly neutron-absorbing impurities such as rare earth isotopes or boron, and because of that the system shut down regularly, and different parts of the reactor might have operated at different times. The other involved the role of water acting as a neutron moderator. As the temperature of the reactor went up, water was converted to steam, reducing the neutron thermalisation and shutting down the chain reaction. The chain reaction re-started only when the reactor cooled down and the water increased again.

Analysis of the xenon, the largest concentration of xenon ever found in any natural material, confirmed the water method. It also revealed the role of alumophosphate as the system's waste absorber.

Xenon is extremely rare on earth and very characteristic of the fission process. Chemically inert, the element has nine isotopes and is abundant in many nuclear processes.

"You get a big diagnostic fingerprint with xenon, and it's easy to purify," said Hohenberg, who noted the importance of alumophosphate in the natural nuclear reactor.

"More krypton 85, a major waste from modern nuclear reactors, is getting piped into the atmosphere each year," he said. "Maybe this natural mode can suggest a safer solution."

Can there be a natural nuclear reactor in actual operation today?

"Today even the largest and richest uranium deposit cannot become a reactor because the present concentration of 235 U is too low – only about 0.72 percent," said Meshik. "However, because 235 U decays much faster than 238 U, in the past, 235 U was more abundant. For example, two billion years ago 235 U was five times higher, about three percent, approximately the concentration of enriched uranium used in modern commercial reactors."

Another vital condition for self-sustaining nuclear reaction is the high content of a moderator to slow the neutrons, Meshik said. Water, carbon, most organic compounds, silicon dioxide, calcium oxide and magnesium oxide all are natural neutron moderators. Also, the concentrations of neutron absorbents – iron, potassium, beryllium, and especially gadolinium, samarium, europium, cadmium and boron – should be low.

"Only when all of these requirements are met can a self-sustaining chain reaction occur," Meshik said.

Nuclear reaction doing in Sodom and Gomorrah? Maybe. But I want to see more positive proof.

As for aliens doing it -- nah, I don't think so. No more than they built the pyramids or Stonehenge of the Easter Island heads. MY ancestors were pretty smart; I don't know about YOURS.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 12 Nov 04 - 07:43 AM

Brucie,

I know you can take a correction with grace so let me point out that "Thou shalt not kill" is now known to be a wrong translation. 'Murder' is the word.

I'm glad I can agree with Little Hawk on one detail: I also consider the thunderbolt or angel version bollocks.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 05:00 PM

Do you know how large of an area was effected by the blast, LH? Was that the attack that happened a year or so age that killed a bunch of Australian tourists?

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 04:42 PM

(snicker!) He must've run out of bananas...

There is a possibility that a quite small tactical nuke was used already...in Bali. Some people were vaporized there by the explosion that occurred. By whom, is the question, and with what political purpose in mind?

This is mere speculation, however, and nothing more than that. I just offer it as a possibility.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 04:34 PM

The US envisaged a scenario where they would be prepared to use 'battlefield nuclear weapons' in Europe 20 years ago. If they were prepared for it then why not now? After all the Middle East is a long way from the US isn't it?
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 04:10 PM

My goodness! Georgie the man-chimp's a bit testy today, isn't he?

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: GUEST,George W. Bush
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 04:06 PM

You people mean "nukular" weapons, doncha? How many times do I hafta correct you dad-gummed efite east-coast pinko snobs? It's "nukular"! Fifty-one percent of Americans voted for me and that means fifty-one percent of Americans think the word is "nukular"! The other forty-nine percent of you are wrong, wrong, wrong!

It's "Nukular"!

"Nukular"!

"Nukular"!

"Nukular"!

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

"Tactical nukes" already exist. It's just a matter of terminology. Strategic nukes are big bombs--lotsa blast power. Tactical nukes can be placed in shells and fired from cannons. They don't have so much blast power. The use of tactical nukes means that battlefield procedures have to change and fighting conditions have to change. The EMP from a nuclear blast plays hell with electronics. Tank crews will have to be shielded from

1) the explosion
2) the radiation

Tanks will have to be shielded from

1) the EMP
2) the heat

Soldiers in the blast area will be dead right now. So, the users soldiers will have to be shielded or not there. Read General Sir John Hackett's "World War III" or Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising." After the first shot, the world will never be the same. As Bee-dubya-ell so adroitly pointed out, it may not be possible to get the genie back in the bottle. And as Carol stated, "If they're talking about it they probably already have them." IMO, yep!

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:54 PM

I was chatting to an acwaintance [probly spelt that wrong, he's someone i know, but not a freind] in the pub a few days ago, he said "They should drop a fucking big nuclear bomb on Mecca, that would sort the fuckers out"
I'm glad he's not in charge!

He is called John, [not John prescott].

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: grumpy al
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:50 PM

If they admit to working on them they already have them

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:47 PM

Well, the US is working on developing "small scale" tactical nuclear weapons. My guess is that if they're working on them, they intend to use them at some point.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:43 PM

I remember renewing my library card during the summer of 1963 when I was eleven years old. The card was good for four years, which meant it expired in 1967. As I looked at that date on the card I was sure someone had made a mistake because, in 1963, everyone knew that 1967 would never come. 1964 was looking iffy and 1965 was even more unlikely, but for anyone to even imagine that the world would not be destroyed before 1967 rolled around just seemed absurd.

Forty-one years later and it ain't happened yet.


But, reflecting on the question at hand...

I don't know what the odds are that a nuclear weapon will be used in the mid-east, but I fear that if one does get used - and it makes no difference whether it is used by The U.S., Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, an Arab state, or a terrorist organization - the odds of more being used are close to 100%. Somehow, we've managed to keep the nuclear genie in the bottle for almost 60 years now, but once it gets out it's not going to be easy to put it back in.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: grumpy al
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:42 PM

Amen to that dianavan

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:35 PM

(2) Dag Hammarskjold, speech in 1956.

"We are on dangerous ground if we believe that any individual, any nation, or any ideology has a monopoly on rightness, liberty and human dignity."

d

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:17 PM

That's true. They are just different. Agreed.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:16 PM

I think that, quite likely, during the Bush reign of terror an Islamic country (most likely Iran) will launch some kind of nuclear attack against the USA. The Bushman will then retalliate with a nuclear attack on the country concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: grumpy al
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:14 PM

Little Hawk,
I do not believe that a conventional mind, what ever that is, is proud ofit's narrow horizons, it is more a case of what the mind "sees" as its comfort zone. You obviously think well out of your comfort zone, as do a lot of others, but please do not be to critical of those who find this action to scary to cope with. It does not make you better than they are, just different.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:09 PM

I don't think nuclear bombs will be used for anything other than to deter the 'others'. Its not as if the U.S. and Israel are the only big guns out there. Now we have Iran being backed by China, Russia and India. Hopefully, U.S. aggression will be halted by their presence. If not, the next best hope is for another 'cold war' with billions more dollars being pumped into space weapons.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:02 PM

Boab: That is one of the most brilliant posts I have ever read on the 'cat.

Subject: RE: BS: Nuclear weapon use in mid-East. Odds?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Nov 04 - 03:00 PM

It might have been alien visitors, but I have no final opinion about that. I don't know who it was. No idea, in fact. It might have simply been an earlier civilization of humans who had advanced technology which was later lost, due to war or natural disasters of some kind.

However, I think it far more likely that weapons similar to our present nuclear bombs were used to suddenly destroy those two cities...than Angels or an enraged deity hurling thunderbolts! :-)

The latter version is what I call bollox.

There are higher than average levels of radiation still present in the geographical area where those cities stood, and there is physical evidence present in the form of "green glass", melted out of the sand on the surface there by the intense heat of the nuclear fire.

The third alternative is that nothing happened there at all...in which case the ancient people made up a very significant legend about the sudden destruction of 2 cities on the basis of something that never happened. And that is about as likely as the Angels and thunderbolts story....

Legends are a simple people's way to try to describe something that happened long before their birth in terms that they can understand in their own context.

Pied Piper has no other rational argument to put forward about Sodom and Gomorrah, he just automatically denies anything he doesn't already believe, and ridicules it. This has been the reaction of the conventional mind ever since our ancestors crawled out of the trees or the cave or the neighborhood pub or wherever.... The conventional mind is proud of its very narrow horizons and defends them in a predictable fashion. It already figures that it knows all it needs to know in order to earn a living, get laid, etc...

Well, yes, but that's all an animal knows too.